Useless Clatter...Orson Welles: The Man, The Myth, The Misunderstood

From a rising theater talent to America’s most outstanding auteur, Citizen Kane launched Welles’s career, forming the legacy that exceeds him to this day. Yet, that legacy is one of convoluted crossings. For many, Welles is considered one of the cinema’s finest directors. But to some others though, Welles’ legacy remains alive not though his great films, but through a series of fumbling commercial outtakes preserved on YouTube. In color and occurring decades after Kane, the minute and a half video stars an overweight and seemingly over-served Orson Welles pitifully trying to deliver lines for a wine commercial. The video has over one million hits, and there are two, in which case that number can be doubled. This total amounts to more than that of any trailer for any of his films, including Citizen Kane.

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Reel News...Sight & Sound 2012 Poll

Citizen Kane is a second-rate film. I’m only joking of course, but actually sort of serious.

 For the first time in 50 years, Welles’ celebrated masterpiece has been knocked out of its familiar standing as the “Greatest Film of All Time” in Sight  & Sound’s decennial poll. The defeat came by way of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller Vertigo which surpassed Kane by a mere 34 votes.

Statistically speaking and with a hint of hindsight, it seemed only a matter of time for Vertigo to someday take the top spot.  Slowly and steadily the film has made its way upwards in the BFI poll since its inclusion as the seventh best film of all time back in the 1982.  In 1992, Vertigo was fourth and 10 years later it would move up to number two right behind Citizen Kane. This year of course, we see that's the other way around.